The Crimson Skew

by S. E. Grove

  “Except that there’s been no fire,” a man called back from the sidewalk.

  “Or brimstone,” a woman chimed in.

  Shadrack chuckled to himself at the Nihilismian’s consternated expression and walked on, heading up the State House steps.

  He had already written several letters that morning to diverse correspondents across the region with the intention of discovering what he could about the strange phenomenon, and he planned to spend the morning investigating the matter further. But when he arrived at his office, he found a young woman with short black hair and a trim suit standing at his closed door. The prime minister’s assistant was waiting.

  “Minister Elli,” she said, with a brief smile. “Unusual weather, isn’t it?”

  “Good morning, Cassandra,” he replied. “To say the very least. Any theories?” He opened the door and ushered her in.

  “I have some ideas.” Her expression was mischievous. “But I’d like to have some evidence before I speculate out loud.”

  “Very wise,” Shadrack said with a smile. “My housekeeper suggested the Fates were having their chimney swept.”

  Cassandra laughed.

  “I am not entirely sure she was joking,” Shadrack said, with a shake of his head.

  “Surely every theory is worth testing when there is no clear explanation,” she said.

  Gamaliel Shore had been sorely disappointed to lose Cassandra Pierce, and the Prime Minister was quite proud of having lured her away. Both parties recognized her as the best assistant in the State House. She was known to be discreet, punctual, tireless, and incredibly resourceful. Moreover, she was friendly without being unctuous, professional without being cold, and informative without being a gossip. She bore very little resemblance to the Nihilismian archivist called “Remorse,” who had, it was thought, departed on a mission to another Age. Even her appearance was different—brighter and cleaner, somehow. Those few people in Boston who had business in the Nihilismian archive and the State House would have had difficulty realizing that Remorse and Cassandra were one and the same.

  And Shadrack, having never visited the archive, was himself no wiser. He had assumed that anyone who chose voluntarily to work with Broadgirdle was bound to be either wildly deluded or perilously dim-witted, so he paid little attention to the new assistant whenever he had contact with her. But Cassandra would not be ignored. Because he would not hire an assistant, much preferring to work alone, Shadrack had to deflect her insistent visits himself. She began making a habit of stopping by Shadrack’s office, at first with messages from Broadgirdle (that could easily have been delivered by the messenger boy) or papers to sign (that were far from urgent), and later with questions that, to his surprise, piqued Shadrack’s interest.

  Usually, these questions were about maps. Were there new maps showing the position of Princess Justa in the western Baldlands, and how far did her rule there extend? Did the maps of the Indian Territories show exact or only approximate positions for the westernmost towns? How did the maps of the Territories and Baldlands account for migratory populations that traveled north and south over the course of the year?

  Shadrack had begun to feel less dread when he saw Cassandra at his door, but this morning proved to be different almost from the start. “May I close the door?” Cassandra asked once Shadrack was seated at his desk.

  “Certainly,” he said with some surprise.

  Taking a seat across from the desk, Cassandra held up a bundle of papers. “I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

  “I would be glad to try.”

  “I have found that the key to being a good assistant is to anticipate what the prime minister needs before he knows he needs it.”

  “That is certainly an admirable goal, though it sounds impossible to me.”

  Cassandra smiled. “Usually, it just means thinking ahead a little bit.”

  “Very well—if you say so.”

  “In this case, it has to do with the terrible fog attacks that have struck in the Indian Territories.”

  “Fog attacks . . .” Shadrack echoed. “Is that how we are describing them?”

  Cassandra blinked. “Is my description inaccurate?”

  “No.” He paused. “But ‘attack’ suggests intention and deliberate action. I was not aware that we knew as much.”

  Cassandra pursed her lips. “You are probably right. The prime minister does not call them attacks. But I just cannot help seeing them that way.” She gave a sheepish smile. “Perhaps it is in my nature to see malicious people doing bad things where there are none. Surely not a good quality!”

  “Well,” Shadrack conceded, “they could be attacks. We do not know.”

  “Precisely,” Cassandra continued. “Which is why I think it is best to be prepared.” She placed the bundle of papers on the edge of Shadrack’s desk. The top sheet, Shadrack could see clearly, was a list of addresses.

  “You mean to be prepared for an attack here?”

  Cassandra nodded.

  “I . . .” Shadrack leaned back in his chair. “I confess it had not occurred to me. It seems a very remote possibility. To date, all of the occurrences have been in the Indian Territories.”

  “Nevertheless,” Cassandra said, raising her forefinger, “a good assistant thinks ahead.”

  Shadrack gave a slight smile. “Right. You’ve made your point. And what is it you would like to do in anticipation of a possible attack here?”

  “My first thought was to ensure the safety of all the prime minister’s properties.” Casually she handed the top sheet of paper across the desk to Shadrack. “Other precautions must also be taken, of course, but surely it would help to somehow secure them.”

  Shadrack took the paper without a word and attempted to school his face into an expression of helpful rumination. He could not believe what Cassandra had just given him. For weeks, he had searched for this information without success, for Broadgirdle kept his personal matters carefully concealed. If it truly listed all of Broadgirdle’s properties, what he was now holding could very well point to the location of the kidnapped Eerie. “Hm,” he said, scanning it quickly. “That sounds challenging,” he commented. There were five addresses. One was the mansion on Beacon Hill, which he and all of Boston already knew about. Another was an address in western Cambridge. Two were warehouses near the water. And the last was a farm in Lexington. “How would you secure these properties?”

  “I asked myself the same question. Without knowing what this fog is, we cannot begin to protect ourselves from it.”

  “I could not agree more,” Shadrack said mechanically. He repeated the addresses silently to himself, committing each one to memory.

  “So I thought it might help to consult a botanist,” Cassandra said brightly, looking pleased with herself.

  Shadrack felt a sudden tremor of warning. Putting the list of addresses carefully aside, he clasped his hands and looked at Broadgirdle’s assistant. He felt immediately, undoubtedly certain that Cassandra Pierce knew much more than she was saying. Her expression, so cheerfully self-satisfied, looked no different from usual. But her eyes were grave—deeply, meaningfully grave.

  “Why a botanist?” Shadrack asked quietly. “I should have thought you would look for a chemist if you think the fog storms are deliberate attacks.”

  “Ah,” Cassandra said, without changing her tone, “but everyone who has reported on the attacks says the fog smells like flowers.”

  “Many substances smell like flowers.”

  Cassandra frowned. “So you think it’s a bad idea to consult a botanist?”

  “Not necessarily. I was only trying to understand how you had come to your conclusion.”

  She sighed. “I suppose, to be thorough, I should also consult with chemists. You are right—we cannot know the nature of this substance. Nevertheless,” she went on, handing
him the second sheet of paper, “these are the botanists I was able to identify in Boston who have enough expertise to consider the problem.”

  Shadrack glanced at the list of names. None of them was familiar. “How did you determine their expertise?”

  “I looked at their scholarly work. Though I am by no means an expert in botany, it is a small field, and there are only three scientists in Boston who publish their research with any regularity. These are the three.

  “And finally we come to my request for assistance,” Cassandra said, leaning forward. “You will see that one is circled. I could locate the other two, but not this one. Then I realized that he teaches at the university—I believe you hold an appointment there as well, do you not?”

  Shadrack looked at the circled name. Gerard Sorensen. “I do,” he said slowly.

  “I thought perhaps, with your connections there, you might be able to locate him.”

  Shadrack looked up at Cassandra and realized that he had misunderstood. His first impression had been that she was in Broadgirdle’s confidence and that her knowledge came from him.

  But no—she was not in his confidence. Cassandra Pierce was working behind Broadgirdle’s back.

  She said the words just as they were meant to sound: hopeful, light, and without particular significance. Shadrack heard their significance nonetheless. As he looked in her eyes, he understood the words she really intended: This man knows what the crimson fog is. I am giving you his name. Go find him.

  He could not fathom how or why Cassandra Pierce had come to this knowledge, or how she had come to a point where she was betraying Broadgirdle’s secrets. Perhaps, he considered, this had been her intention from the start. After all, she was relatively new to the prime minister’s office. But however she had arrived and however she had decided to betray her employer, one thing was clear: Cassandra Pierce was trying to help Shadrack. She had already given several indications of what to do, and he could not ignore them. The woman sitting before him suddenly looked entirely different than she had when she knocked on his office door, even though nothing about her had changed.

  “I think it’s very likely that I could locate him at the university,” Shadrack said. “Would it be helpful if I tried to speak with him?”

  Cassandra’s face lit up. “That would be so helpful.”

  “Then I’d be glad to help.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “No, Cassandra,” he said, handing the paper back to her. “Thank you.”

  —August 10, 16-Hour 10—

  THE PLOTTERS HAD been reduced to four when Miles left for the Indian Territories. But they continued to meet, of course, their goal being more urgent than ever, and on August tenth Winnie and Nettie were happily devouring a blackberry tart made by Mrs. Clay while they waited for Shadrack to join them. Speculation as to the meaning of Cassandra’s clues—reported by the housekeeper to the junior plotters—flew around the table.

  “She must hate Broadsy as much as we do!” Winnie declared triumphantly.

  “She might not hate him,” Nettie said thoughtfully, taking a forkful of tart. “Perhaps she has some long-term plan of her own that involves the crimson fog.”

  “I just want to point out,” Mrs. Clay sniffed, “that I might have been wrong about the origin of the fog, but I am very right about its dangers. If anything, this means it is even worse than we thought.”

  “But the problem is that we don’t really know anything,” said Nettie. “Until we find this Sorensen—and even then . . . he might know something, or not.”

  The knob on the side door rattled, and the door flew open. “Well, my friends,” Shadrack announced. He brought the outside air, dank as an extinguished fire, into the room with him. “I have good news and bad news.”

  “And we have blackberry tart!” Winnie announced, holding up his laden fork.

  Shadrack smiled. He sat and gladly accepted the plate Mrs. Clay handed him. “The good news,” he said, diving into the tart without delay, “is that I located Sorensen’s office at the university. He is, indeed, a member of the botany department, and he has been working there for nearly thirty years.”

  “Oh, he must be old,” Nettie said.

  “Rather. The bad news,” Shadrack swallowed the tart, “is that Sorensen has not been seen in his office for months. He is missing.”

  “Missing?” the plotters echoed.

  “Yes. And Sorensen, while his wife passed away some years ago—the departmental assistant informed me—does have two grown children and several grandchildren in Boston. He has reason to stay in the area, and it is unlikely that he would willingly disappear without a word of explanation, as he has.”

  “Broadgirdle,” Nettie said grimly.

  “Very possibly. So our answers are not as near as I hoped. But,” he said, pausing briefly for another bite of tart, “we do have another lead as to the location of the missing Weatherers, thanks to Cassandra. We have the addresses. The two warehouses and the farm in Lexington are the most likely prospects. That is where we shall start our search.”

  “I can go,” Winnie said quickly.

  “You can, no doubt,” Shadrack replied just as quickly, “but it would be both dangerous and foolish.”

  “Why isn’t Cassandra doing this herself?” Nettie asked. “I’m not ungrateful, of course, but I am trying to understand what her part is in all of this.”

  “You ask a good question,” Shadrack said, “which I have wondered myself. She is playing a deep game here, and I cannot pretend to understand the objectives fully. The best I can say is that she is also working against Broadgirdle but perhaps believes that pursuing these leads openly while working as his assistant would put her in jeopardy.”

  “So she gets us to help,” Nettie said.

  “Yes—in some ways, we are helping her as much as she is helping us. She’s suggesting a division of labor, perhaps. While she infiltrates his office and learns what she can, we take action to pursue the leads.”

  “It seems dangerous to me,” Mrs. Clay said unhappily.

  “But we have to do it,” Winnie insisted.

  “We already are,” Shadrack put in. “Winnie and his colleagues at the State House have been following every lead.” Winnie nodded gravely. “Nettie has been tactfully observing Inspector Grey’s progress on the investigation.”

  Winnie scowled. “Or lack of progress.”

  “He is not entirely to blame,” Shadrack said. Then he addressed Nettie. “Perhaps we should tell your father about this most recent development. When Broadgirdle is apprehended, it must be official. I think it is time for Inspector Grey to investigate anew.”

  Nettie shook her head. “My father is persuaded that by arresting Mr. Peel he arrested the right man, Mr. Elli. He believes Broadgirdle is innocent. And I don’t think these hints from Cassandra are going to change his mind. In fact—we can’t even tell him where the hints come from. Think about what it will cost Cassandra if we can convince him to look at these addresses and it turns out that nothing is there.”

  Shadrack hesitated.

  “Nettie and I can go!” Winnie repeated. “Broadgirdle doesn’t know us, and we look perfectly innocent.” He adopted an expression of beatific gentleness that made him appear disturbingly empty-headed.

  Nettie smiled. “I agree with Winnie. Just as a first step. If there’s anything to see, we bring the matter to my father.”

  Again, Shadrack hesitated. “Very well. I can see the difficulty of persuading Inspector Grey with so little tangible evidence. But I can’t see the sense in sending the two of you to explore alone. We shall go together.”

  Winnie beamed. “Fizzing. Where to first?”

  “I think the warehouses. We can go tomorrow afternoon, when I return from the ministry.”

  He looked at the two eager faces before him and felt a pang of guilt. The decept
ion he had set in motion was for their own safety, he reminded himself. Broadgirdle was far too dangerous for two children to reckon with. The next steps he would have to take alone.

  20

  Bittersweet

  —1892, August 9: 5-Hour 31—

  The Elodeans (Eerie) do come together frequently, contrary to popular rumor. But those who would wish to see many together in a single place should know, it is almost impossible to predict when and where the gatherings will occur. Several times a year, I have been told, messengers are sent to all the Elodeans within a ten days’ journey of the Eerie Sea. Then they come together to discuss whatever matter has called them forth. From what I know, these are singular occasions, entirely unlike the gatherings of other peoples. There are no celebrations, no songs or ritual performances. The conversations take place over several days, in small clusters rather than large gatherings. At some point, the issue is considered resolved or unresolvable, and they all go their separate ways.

  —From Sophia Tims’s Reflections on a Journey to the Eerie Sea

  SOPHIA, RIDING ON Nosh in front of Bittersweet, had a clear view of Salt Lick. Wide streets of pounded dirt were lined by log-frame buildings. Each building resembled a large box stacked atop a smaller one; narrow passageways ran between them. Down a passage to her left, Sophia saw the fleeing hindquarters of a panicked horse, trailing a saddle and what looked like a blue blanket. Smoke plumed out into the street through the buildings’ narrow windows. A woman leaned out of one near them and screamed, “Ivan! Ivan!” before abruptly collapsing inward and disappearing from sight.

  It was evident that the crimson fog had struck everywhere. Having never seen Salt Lick before, Sophia could hardly compare, but it seemed to her that the city had been shattered. Fires burned in open doorways, charring the buildings, and in the middle distance, smoke filled the horizon. The street outside the station was almost empty. A lone man sat in the dirt, weeping quietly into his hands. Sophia shuddered.